


The Purrminator

by Averia



Series: Of Tigers, Elephants & Human Robins [2]
Category: Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Gen, Good Slade Wilson, Haly's Circus (DCU), Kid Dick Grayson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27728621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Averia/pseuds/Averia
Summary: "I'm going to fly. I'm really going to fly with my parents!" Dick whispers into his fur that evening, pitch so high it hurts Slade's sensitive ears, and he gives a faint growl, wet nose bumping against the boy's cheek.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Slade Wilson
Series: Of Tigers, Elephants & Human Robins [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733782
Comments: 8
Kudos: 101





	The Purrminator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WingingIt2410](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingingIt2410/gifts).



> The not so wholesome counterpart to Purrstroke because it’s mostly from Slade’s PoV, and, well, “you know what” happens.
> 
> Wingingit2410 is entirely responsible for the title. :p

The boy twirl and skid across the circus grounds, his excitement contagious and as bright as the sun. In a few days and for the very first time, he will finally fly above the crowd.

Once or twice Zitka plucks him out of the air with her trunk, throwing the squealing boy up while his parents watch them with fond amusement, as always impressed by their son's friendship with the large but gentle animal.

Slade watches the spectacle, huffs against the raw meat he is gnawing on, white fur turning pink. His eye glimmers in the bright sunlight, fur slightly raised in annoyance. A hand brushes over his head, has him rumbling a warning.

“And I thought you were finally learning how to behave,” Wintergreen laments, leaning back against the metal beams of the lazy beast’s cage. Slade licks the blood off his paws, eyes Wintergreen shrewdly. For once, no smell of alcohol betrayed his old friend’s arrival.

“Haly told me all about the boy.”

Slade huffs, stretching out as he lays down on his side, ears flicking and nose twitching. His sharp gaze is drawn back to the little robin, to the beaming smile on the boy’s face.

“You think it’s wise to be so close to him?”

His tail flicks lazily across the dirt and yet in warning. Wise or not. It was the boy that came to him, and, no matter how much his kind is killed for being the manifestation of ravenous instinct, he has never once felt the urge to drag children out of their parent's embrace.

"Right. You'll do what you want against anyone's advice."

Slade doesn't react, lets the rays of the sun soak into his skin. Despite Wintergreen's nagging, Slade appreciates his old friend's presence, the reminder that he was once more than a feline predator.

Slade remains lazing in his cage the whole day, yawning to expose his blinking teeth to the circus visitors and watching them with focus. They would kill him if they knew what he truly is. Would sweat out of fear instead of the summer heat. 

Even among Haly’s crew, not everyone likes the carnivores. When Dick started to go from cuddles with elephants to cuddles with tigers, Mari began to worry, and, while Slade does not fault her for it – his claws and teeth _are_ sharp – John is another matter. He never fails to usher Dick away the second he notes Slade's attention as if he truly is no more than a hungry beast of old.

"I'm going to fly. I'm really going to fly with my parents!" Dick whispers into his fur that evening, pitch so high it hurts Slade's sensitive ears, and he gives a faint growl, wet nose bumping against the boy's cheek.

Instead of letting go, Dick hugs the fluffy neck even more tightly, and Slade rumbles out a sound that should be a complaint but truly isn't. 

"Are you going to watch?" Dick asks, so quiet as if he is sharing a secret instead of asking a question.

The strong, striped tail curls over the earth, a purr developing deep in the tiger's chest. Slade nuzzles the boy’s neck, ears flicking. Something content settles right in the center of his chest. 

🐅

There is a scent in the air Slade does not like. It burns his nostrils and tastes like rot on his tongue. His claws show as he moves over the grounds like a hunter on the prowl. The smell gets stronger inside the circus tent, but no suspicious sound is carried to his ears and his gaze perceives nothing either.

Dick is sitting in the middle of the ring when he brushes through the parting fabrics of the tent. His gaze is focused on the trapeze, and Slade approaches slowly, paws leaving deep prints in the sand. He presses his cheek against the boy's, earns first a twitch, then a giggle once Dick recognizes who he is. Almost content, Slade settles down behind his small charge no matter how hard it will be to get the sand out of his fur afterward.

"I saw someone," Dick says quietly, fingers drawing shapes into the sand. "He looked scary."

Slade tilts his head, whiskers pushing out as he eyes the somber face. Not needing any prompting, Dick curls together against his front, cold nose pushed into the white fur of his chest.

"Do you think he was one of those bad people Gotham has?" Dick whispers. His worry lies thick in the air.

Slade settles his chin on top of the boy's head. He has no words to give, has not been able to speak for years, but his one-eyed gaze roams the roof of the big top again, hoping to find more clues than just the slowly disappearing scent, not even stopping when Dick is called away to prepare for his performance.

Only when the men start to rake the sand does he move to make their jobs easier. He watches them from the sidelines, ears flickering and gaze staying, tail moving from side to side. The scent has grown so faint that Slade almost does not smell it anymore. Admitting something akin to defeated, Slade slinks behind the bleachers to watch as he promised, grooming his paws as Haly tries to find him and put him back into his cage. The circus owner gives up with a frustrated growl that has Slade smiling, sharp teeth glinting.

The tent fills slowly, chatter growing louder until it is silenced by an elephant's hoot. After the large animals, come the clowns and then the magicians, the strongmen, and so many others before the stars of the night arrive.

Dick looks proud standing on the platform, and the sight has Slade perking up, then prowling in circles with restless energy. He has always known that the boy is a prodigy. Could fly before he could walk. It's why Zitka calls him Robin. Why so many of the shapeshifters do.

Still, something lies in the air that Slade does not like.

Dick grins as he skips into the air without any fear. His happiness is as blinding as the show lights above. Maybe that’s why Slade barely sees it, doesn't hear it at all. But Dick's expression morphs into childish confusion just as gravity begins to work again, and Mari's scream rips through the air, shrill and chilling like the cry of a bird.

Slade’s fur rises, shudder rushing over his back to the tip of his tail.

They fall, all three of them, and Slade moves, tearing out behind the boards with a crash and wood between his teeth. Then he is jumping off the ring walls with a hiss, mighty muscles propelling him high into the air. He snatches Dick up long before the small body can hit the ground. 

The boy curls up instinctively. Their hearts beat in one.

Slade lands, skids over the ground, nearly crashing into the ring wall when the sand seems to give beneath their combined weight. Dick's shirt rips in beneath his glinting fangs. 

Mari's and John's bodies barely make a sound, aren't heard above the screams of the crowd and the shouts. The whole tent seems to tremble, and Slade keeps his head down, nuzzles Dick's cheek, curls around him as the boy trembles. His eyes are squeezed shut, and Slade is glad. Dick is way too young to see death. Especially death so cruel.

The small hands curl into the white fur covering his chest, and the blue eyes blink open, wide. They try to look past his bulk, and Slade doesn't let him, doesn't care that Dick starts to cry, knows it's not because of his doing. Dick might not know that now, confronted with an angry tiger, but he’ll appreciate it later.

"Get that beast away from him," someone says, clearly incensed, and Slade rips around, showing his long, long teeth as he hisses. A sob escapes Dick, so wet and desperate that Slade nearly turns back, but the narrowed blue eyes stare down at him as if the man would rather kick him away than let him remain at the side of the child that is by all means his to protect. 

Another savage sound builds deep in his chest, snaps out of his throat in a spitting hiss.

For a moment longer, they glare at each other, but then the man kneels into the sand, concerned gaze sticking to Dick, who has curled up into a tight ball behind the pacing tiger.

"Richard?" the man asks gently. "That's your name, right?"

Dick sniffles behind him. Wet blue eyes peer over the small, curled arms.

"Are you hurt?"

Dick's lip wobbles.

"Do you need anything?"

"Mom," Dick whispers, wetly, shaking his head. "Dad."

Slade brushes his head against Dick's, displacing the ruffled hair even more. His body hides Dick from view again and this time, Dick leans into him.

"Mister Wayne, please," he hears Haly whisper, pain in his voice and carved onto his face. Wayne stands up reluctantly, sharp gaze meeting his.

"Of course."

Slade ignores him the way Wayne intended to ignore him, nuzzling Dick's head, bumping his head against his chin until the arms curl around him again and Slade can cage the boy between the wall and his bulk so that people leave them alone.

🦇

Slade wakes blearily, Dick is still curled up against him, which explains why he didn’t wake sooner. There are voices, and Slade snarls when he recognizes the smell.

Wayne barely glances at him as he talks to Dick, who soothes through his fur on reflex, pressing his weight against Slade, telling him everything is ok. Slade doesn't think it is. The man smells strange. Like Kevlar and oil. He smells like war.

A growl develops in his chest, low and threatening, is only cut short by Zitka's trunk poking at his head. Slade bites at her, a hiss escaping his throat when he can't move enough in fear of losing Dick.

"Haly and I believe it’s better for you to leave the circus. At least for a while," Wayne explains, and Slade would rather rip the man’s head off than let Dick be taken away. 

But the whole circus erupts with whispers the second Wayne and the police leave. Wayne wants to adopt Dick, and all Slade can wonder about is why.

The Wayne's were murdered when Bruce Wayne was still a child, but Slade sees no good reason, only an excuse, and he keeps his eye open, his nose flared.

Dick considers it, childishly tentative, thinking it's a choice. Slade knows better.

The Dark Knight of Gotham. Batman is a whisper, a ghost, and a legend. _A shapeshifter,_ everyone says in fear. He does not smell like one of Slade's kin. He smells not much of anything except Kevlar and oil.

The beastly teeth glimmer in the dark as Slade watches the dark shadow leave the grounds, no sand corn disturbed, and he curls more tightly around the sleeping boy.

Wayne is a liar. Wayne uses the people's fear and prejudice. Slade wants to rip him apart with claws and teeth, instincts craving to take over. But it would hurt his case, and it would only hurt Dick more. Hurt the circus more and as much as he is considered the gnarly old beast, they have all experienced too much torture to risk harming anyone else.

But there are other things he can do. Slade was born a shifter. He still remembers how effortless it was. Then came the war. The instincts of puberty. The fear. The military.

They tried to make the best out of him, tried to form him into an unstoppable weapon. Into a terminator.

They succeeded, and they didn't like the weapon they created. They tried to rip it apart, tried to push it away. Slade remembers the forced shifts, feels them again. The flexing and ripping and forming of muscles. The rearrangement of his skin.

"Leave," Slade half-growls, curling from the pain, claws ripping into the earth as he shows his blinking teeth to Wayne, his ears still flick atop his head even as white hair has already taken form.

Wayne stares at him without fear but there is surprise, shock even, and Dick's mouth hangs open, wide blue eyes taking him in. Then Dick is running - towards Slade instead of away, slipping out of the one hand grasp Wayne has on his shoulder to nearly barrel him over. Dick's arms curl around his neck the way they have always done, only this time there is no fur between them.

His sharp gaze dares Wayne to say anything, to dare and lock the circus down. Slade knows he won’t. He wouldn't have revealed the secret if he thought Wayne would. But on the off chance that he is wrong, everyone will know who Batman is by tomorrow.

"You can't give him a home," Wayne ends up saying, gaze hard. His anger spices up the air.

"I'm his home, Wayne," Slade replies, barely sounding human. But Wayne is right, he can't give Dick a legal home. Not as a shapeshifter. Thankfully, someone, he trusts can. Wintergreen is already forging the documents they need. Knew what to do with just a glance at the half-shredded newspaper Slade disposed of in front of him.


End file.
